Vt. is first state to post health insurance rates

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont has become the first state to let people without health insurance see how much they would pay to get coverage through the federal health overhaul beginning next year.

The state released proposed rates Monday. Examples show that a family of four with an annual income of $32,000 would pay $45 a month out of pocket. A single person making $40,000 would pay $317 a month.

Vermont's rates aren't expected to affect other states'. Andy Hyman of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation says more states are expected to release theirs over the next month or so.

Vermont embraced the federal health overhaul from the outset and hopes to go further. The state is setting up what would become the nation's first single-payer health care system, to be implemented in 2017.